Goode effectively ran both the fish research program of the U.S. Fish Commission and the Smithsonian Institution from 1873 to 1887. He was the United States Commissioner for Fish and Fisheries from 1887 to 1888. He authored many books and monographs and wrote more than 100 scientific reports and notes.[2]

Goode was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He received from the Queen Regent of Spain the decoration of Commander in the Royal Order of Ysabel la Catolica. He also was awarded the degree of Ph.D. from Indiana University and that of LL.D. from Wesleyan University.[3] He died at Lanier Heights in Washington, D.C., on September 6, 1896, at the age of only 45, after a bout with pneumonia. He had been at work on a history of the Smithsonian's first fifty years, which were being celebrated in 1896. The then head of the Smithsonian, Samuel Pierpont Langley, completed the volume and wrote a memorial to Goode, published in 1901.[4]